by Tom Chillemi
Children in the front row sat spellbound as the story of civil rights pioneer Irene Morgan was reenacted last Thursday evening at the Historic Middlesex County Courthouse in Saluda.
In 1944, Morgan, a 27-year-old African-American, refused to give up her bus seat to a white couple and was arrested in Saluda. Her court case resulted in the U.S. Supreme Court overturning segregation on interstate public transportation in 1946.
Morgan was one of many African-Americans who were honored or remembered at the Black History Program sponsored by the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society .
“A Day in the Life of Irene Morgan” was written by Tracy Turner Harvey, who also played Morgan in her later years during the play at the courthouse as she remembered that fateful bus ride from Gloucester on July 18, 1944 and two years of court appeals. Among the other actors and actresses was a niece of Morgan, Cleo Warren of Gloucester.
The story ends with a ditty that the audience soon picked up and repeated:
“Get on the bus,
Sit any place,
‘Cause Irene Morgan
she won her case.”
